The uniqueness and importance of this
project cannot be overestimated. The vast legions of classical
guitar music fans and scholars - especially all students of the
music of Sor - should be lining up outside John Doan's door to thank
him! A thirty-year goal of music professor Doan was realized when
he finally succeeded in tracking down and restoring a playable
instrument from c.1830. He was already familiar with the score,
having analyzed it for nearly three decades (it was John who provided
the first accurate string pitch information for the
listing on
Harpguitars.net). The third ingredient necessary to accomplish
the project was that John was conveniently the best-suited musician - a "normal" 6-string classical
guitarist might have found it extremely difficult to play the three
banks of strings. Who better suited than the only performer alive
who was first classically trained and then perfected the modern steel-string,
sub-bass and super-treble-fitted, 20-string harp guitar!

From the
Artist's web site: Sor, known as "The Father of the Classical
Guitar", wrote this very lyric and disarmingly beautiful music in 1830
for a three necked, 21 string guitar called the harpolyre. It has gone
unplayed until now and I am hoping that you would like to be involved in
the discovery of this exciting music. With this recording I hope to give
attention to an important forerunner of the harp guitar and to bring
back to life some incredible music that went beyond six strings long
ago.